Addressing the Side Event on ‘Building Resilience for Sustainable Development: International Cooperation and National Strategies’ of the Fourth UN Conference on LDCs in Istanbul, Turkey, on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said impacts of climate change are visible in the form of extreme weather events, desertification and biodiversity loss, fragility of mountainous ecosystems and melting of glaciers, floods and submergence of coastal areas and sea level rise.[break]
“This clearly demonstrates the imperative need for building LDCs´ risk mitigation capacity aiming at their long term resilience to internal and exogenous shocks,” he said.
LDCs have the lowest per capita income and the highest population growth rate, are handicapped by structural gaps and various other vulnerabilities, he said. “The LDCs are most off track in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and are at the bottom of the Human Development Index rankings. They all have high level of poverty and hunger, low economic base and activity.”
LDCs are hard hit by poverty, hunger, diseases, widespread illiteracy, low productive capacity and dependence on the agrarian economy, and adverse effects of climate change, he said. “These multiple crises have been threatening to reverse even the minimal gains made in the past several years.”
“There is an ongoing effort on the part of the national governments and all stakeholders in these countries. Yet there is a need for more support from the international community in order to bring up these underdeveloped regions or underserved communities to the national level,” he said. “Furthermore, we need a sustained and enhanced level of international support and a new mechanism of dedicated support measures for LDCs to attain MDGs.”
He further said that enhanced, predictable and sustainable flow of resources is important for the LDCs to address their multidimensional development challenges and building resilience.
“The LDCs require a genuine global partnership in order to strengthen social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainable development and build a stronger foundation for a more resilient economy and society,” he added.
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